After one-year jail for two doctors, radiologists of Pune back on warpathhttps://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/after-one-year-jail-for-two-doctors-radiologists-of-pune-back-on-warpath-3019511/

Judicial Magistrate Gajanan Nandanwar sentenced Dr Viren Kulkarni and Dr Rajesh Kankal to one year imprisonment for violating various sections of the PCPNDT Act.

Just five days after they deferred a nationwide agitation, radiologists of Pune are back on the warpath. The radiologists’ association of Pune held meetings late Tuesday night to devise new strategies after Dr Viren Kulkarni and Dr Rajesh Kankal were indicted for flouting the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act.

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On September 6, Judicial Magistrate Gajanan Nandanwar sentenced Dr Viren Kulkarni, former chief of the Pune Radiology Association, and Dr Rajesh Kankal to one year imprisonment for violating various sections of the of the PCPNDT Act.

They were convicted for various lapses in maintaining records as per the Act.

They were also directed to pay fines of Rs 16,000 and Rs 18,000, respectively, failing which, the judicial magistrate said, they would have to undergo imprisonment for ten more days. Dr Vaishali Jadhav, the appropriate authority in the Pune Municipal Corporation for implementing the PCPNDT Act, said a case was registered against Dr Kulkarni and Dr Kankal of the Ankur Diagnostic centre at Kharadi in October 2011 after various lapses and irregularities in maintaining records, specially in the Form F — which records the medical history of the pregnant woman — were found.

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When contacted, Dr Kulkarni said he had sought bail and would move the higher court against the judgment.

“Mistakes were made by the clerical staff, and not us. How could the PMC pull us up based on that? Now we will file petitions in higher courts to redress our grievances,” said Dr Kulkarni.

He added, “At that time, the PMC appropriate authority had examined 1,278 forms and found only clerical mistakes.”

“Nowhere does it show that there is any misuse of the ultrasound machine to determine the sex of the foetus. A majority of radiologists are protesting mainly against these draconian provisions of the Act and now we are facing the music just because of inadvertent clerical mistakes,” he added.